


Doughnuts

by Astronut



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 17:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20568146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astronut/pseuds/Astronut
Summary: A snapshot of a morning at Pseudopolis Yard.





	Doughnuts

**Author's Note:**

> General spoilers for the Watch books. 
> 
> Please do not repost without permission.

Doughnut

The world may be a disk held up by four elephants on the back of a turtle, but the universe is a doughnut. Not one of those jelly filled two penny uprights as several questionable individuals in a dark alleyway might think, if they had the occasion to think at all, but one of those ones with a hole in it. 

Sergeant Pessimal knew the galaxy was a doughnut. Not even doughnut shaped, but a doughnut. As an exacting, detail oriented person, the Sergeant would like to point out that this is not a metaphor or anything like a smile* but a theory with a substantial amount of proof behind it. 

_*It is unknown why Villiham Shakesinfear chose this poetic comparison a ‘smile’, especially when too many of them will cause even the most dedicated reader to tear their hair out with fingers like pickles into small clumps like feathery down and bleed like the eyes of a thousand of discerning readers trying to read poorly crafted, copyright infringing, derivative drivel like this. _

Every morning Sergeant A. E. Pessimal woke early and shaved and did all the other things a man who had been initialed at birth should do to present himself in a manner as neat and tidy as his name. But then he did something unusual for a man named A. E. He slipped on a pair of boots whose soles were no thicker than the ice on the top Ankh River in the winter*. They hardly matched his neatly pressed trousers and shirt. The battered armor he donned next would convince most children that the poor man had been eaten alive by a metallic monster. 

_*While many materials have freezing points and so form ‘ice’, water is the only substance whose solid form will float in its liquid form. Needless to say, the Ankh’s ice sinks to the bottom. _

With his armor properly tied down, albeit with more string than was common, he clanked down Cheapside Road every morning to the local bakery. There he purchased one dozen of the baker’s best donuts. After that, he’d make his way to Pseudopolis Yard, doing his best to practice the slow, meandering walk that Mister Vimes had insisted he perfect. If he got the stride just right, he’d arrive at the Yard when the fresh, hot donuts had cooled enough to eat but before the paper bag became so soaked with grease that the bottom fell out. 

Upon arriving at Pseudopolis Yard, the Sergeant instead made an abrupt turn into the old Lemonade Factory, now home to the Watch’s training academy and Sergeant Colon, custody and liaison officer. There, he deposited the bag on Colon’s suspiciously clean desk.*

_*A desk without paperwork is suspicious. The fat rats dozing in the corner and the layer of crumbs on the floor are even more so. But this was the Watch; everything was suspicious. _

When A. E. arrived on the Watch as the Patrician’s own auditor, he could not comprehend why any Watch, or anyone, would want to hire the portly Sergeant Colon. Over the past year, however, Pessimal had learned the importance of good information even when the mind it came from was highly questionable so he had taken it upon himself to deliver the mandatory morning doughnuts that attracted tipsters like flies on Foul Old Ron. Before departing, A. E. reached into the now transparent bag a grabbed a single doughnut. 

It is a well known fact that Bakers can’t count. Ask them for a twelve of something and you’ll always find yourself with thirteen. Fred Colon, for all his faults, knew his numbers, or liked to think he did and prided himself on knowing that twelve was one dozen, not thirteen. After a rather unfortunate incident that involved much shouting, flying donuts, and some rather deep and bloody bite marks on Colon’s nose, A. E. had found that it was just easier to take the thirteenth than to try and argue the benefits of such absentminded counting.*

_*If this sentiment passed through the head of an accountant in any other circumstance, he would be burned at the stake for blasphemy. Baker’s dozens are an exception, the other being Ole’ron, the failed business venture that tried bottling Old Ron’s scent as Ohdacologne. Accountants, and anyone with a nose, celebrated in the streets after the company’s main clerk embezzled a thousand bottles of ‘assets’. _

As A. E. walked into the main lobby of Pseudopolis Yard, he carefully broke the doughnut exactly in half. One disappeared into his mouth but he deposited the other half on top of the duty officer’s podium by the door and then head up to his office to attack the paperwork that had multiplied during the night.*

_*Paperwork similar to rabbits, expect it’s capable of procreation by mitosis. Leave even a single sheet in your inbox overnight, and the next day you’ll be filling it out in duplicate. If it was a government form, in triplicate. _

With Pessimal’s footsteps fading up the stairs, the first floor was quiet with only the snores of the night watch to keep it company. But the piece and quiet only lasted a moment before Cherry’s high heeled boots clip clopped into the lobby. As the Chief Chemist and Daily Duty Officer, Cheery had the gruesome job of examining bodies and the even more gruesome job of getting up early before the day watch filtered in. 

Sorting out the mess the previous guard had made out of the logbook, she idly munched on her half a doughnut. It had been two weeks since she realized she no longer fit into her chainmail tights. After much thought, Cheery had gone on a diet. After all, no one ever got fat on half a doughnut for breakfast. And half a cup of rat gruel. And half a rat kebob. And half a rat pie.* 

_*It’s not like she ate any of it with ketchup. Ketch up is so fattening. And she only ate half! _

“Good morning, Cheery!” Carrot called out as he arrived precisely on time. Angua followed at his heels, trying to discreetly smooth her disheveled, blond mane. 

“Get lots of exercise this morning?” Cheery inquired cheerfully. 

“Oh, yes, we had a lovely walk,” responded Carrot. “We ran into Mr. Rockagut on his morning milk run and Mr. Strom, who will be enjoying our hospitality as soon as Dr. Lawn stitches up a few claw marks on his leg.” The Captain waved and then disappeared upstairs to talk to the head of the night watch and get things ‘sorted’ for Commander Vimes.*

_*Around Carrot, things and people had a way of ‘sorting’ themselves out. Minor criminals repented, bank robbers served soup to the poor, warring kingdoms united to face down a tyrannical empire, that sort of sorting. _

When Angua passed her, Cheery gave her a nudge and whispered, “If you want, I have some concealer in my locker for, um, that mark on your neck.” 

Angua reddened slightly but shook her head. “I think I can…” She tugged at the collar on her neck until the badge shifted to the left, covering up the red-purple mouth sized mark. “There. Leash rash gone.” 

Cheery rolled her eyes. “Sure. Listen, the night boys had a breaking and thumping over at Flint’s dock warehouses. Do you think you could…” 

Angua’s nose wrinkled and she sighed. “I hate fish guts. Fine, it should be easy enough to follow, it’ll be the only trail that smells like troll instead of fish.” 

“How do you know it’s a troll?” 

“Who else would try to thump a troll with a club but another troll? Especially one that’s flammable. I’ll take Detritus with me as soon as he gets in.”

“Good idea, it’ll take the Golems that long to put out the flames.” 

“Put out what flames?” Both the women turned to see Commander Vimes proceeding in to the room at full tilt. By the sharp angle of the cigar in his mouth and its rather frayed end, they knew they were in for a long day.*

_*The frayed appearance of cigar is directly proportional to how often the smokee is chomping and grinding his teeth which is inversely proportional to how many nerves the smokee has left. _

“Fire on the docks, sir.” 

The Commander nodded but didn’t slow his pace as he started up the stairs. “Tell Dorf to go take a look at things,” he called over his shoulder. “And tell him to bring a frying pan. I want something overly done with grease and crunchy bits.” 

When she was sure the Commander was safely in his office, Cheery whispered to Angua, “Sybil has him on a diet again. More green things than bleeding red ones. And bread mold on a pigs knuckle sandwich doesn’t count as green.”

Angua winced. “I’ll talk to her. Maybe she’ll relent until after the pay review goes through.”

“Doubt it; she seems to think that if he doesn’t follow Dr. Lawn’s diet, he’s going to push himself until his heart stops.” 

Angua sniffed the air. “Nobby’s coming.” 

Several minutes later, Nobby Nobbes, the only watch member with a certificate proving him a human with a questionable doubt, stumbled through the doorway. He was munching on a doughnut. “Wuphf the ‘ea?”

“Chew,” Cheery said. “Chew some more. Now swallow. What did you say?”

“Tea?” 

“No thank you,” Angua responded, knowing what he meant and knowing full well she wouldn’t be fetching him a cup. This dog didn’t do tricks.*

_*At least for men like Nobby. The kingly, tall, handsome variety was another story. Fetch, roll over, stay; she’d do anything for Carrot. _

“Aww, take pity on a lowly Corporal. S’not right for a man to get his own coffee, specially a man of good amount of petagreed like me.” 

“Nobby,” Angua growled.*

_*Not your average growl. This is the sort that sends the cats in the back alley fleeing for their lives._

“Nobby!” Commander Vimes called out as he rushed clumsily down the stairs, his one knee behaving rather stiffly. “Put that doughnut down, we’ve got an unlicensed theft on Narrowway, I’ll show that bastard what we do with illegal thefts in my town!” 

“But Mister Vimes,” Nobby wined, clutching the doughnut. 

“Fine, fine, bring it! If nothing else I know anything with powdered sugar fingerprints wasn’t stolen by our thief. Come one!” 

Upstairs, A. E. shook his head as the conversation drifted up through the gaps between the old, warped floorboards. The morning had started with a doughnut and had ended with one. Everything worked its way around in the end. The galaxy was a doughnut. You just had to work to avoid the hole and if you didn't, well, that was what the Watch was for. 


End file.
